12 five-minute doses of joy

November 22, 2013|By Karen Deerwester, Ed.S

December can be a stressful month for kids and families. Adding new things to an already full to-do list overwhelms even the best organized.

Routines are disrupted for exciting holiday adventures, from parties to Fantasy of Light shows after dark. Holiday fun, while positive, ratchets up moods and plays havoc with everyday calm (not that living with children is ever all that calm). Then add in visits with unfamiliar relatives, juggling the holiday “gimmes,” and parents trying to live up to the challenge of an ideal family holiday, and … December = stress!

Not to worry — awareness is 90 percent of beating stress. Stop, listen, pause. Every pause creates space to breathe, for you and your children, and provides time for your child to get reoriented to sanity. Five minutes of slowing down is five minutes for your child to connect to you, to feeling seen and loved. You are your child's lifeline to peace, joy, calm and sanity. Surprisingly, your child may also be your lifeline in a stressed-out, overdoing world of grownup commitments and obligations. It's the parent version of "stop and smell the roses" – stop and see the world through your child's eyes.

Children live in the moment. So, even in this season of extravagant pageantry and grand magic, try not to lose focus on the little things: the patient hug after the tears from sitting in Santa's lap, not rushing to clean up the messy cookie flour on the floor, or listening to your child sing her favorite Christmas carol for the millionth time. Efficiency can wait five minutes. Five minutes of daily joy can melt the stress of the busiest month of the year.

Here are 12 doses of daily joy to keep your December merry and bright. Each can give your child short blasts of fun and connection to ride through the holiday crazies.

1. Christmas countdown. Advent calendars are great, but so is your personal family countdown. Write out the numbers 1 to 25 on cardstock table tents (i.e., cardstock folded in half with numbers printed on the bottom half) for the kitchen counter, the dinner table or another everyday spot and let your child change the number daily. Or write it on the bathroom mirror or the patio door with window markers.

2. Start the day with a holiday song, either a cappella or from your iPhone. After the first few days, a new ritual will take root, and before you know it, your child will be making requests at bedtime for the next morning.

3. "All I want for Christmas" at breakfast. Make a game of everyone saying what they want for Christmas at the breakfast table, starting with my two front teeth. You can even hide pictures of holiday catalog items under plates. Make it silly to defuse holiday “gimmes” - the fancy sports car, the pony, etc.

4. Magic jingle bells. Everybody in the family gets a holiday bell, and when they ring it, everyone else has to stop and freeze, jump up and down, make heart hands, or pretend they are a Christmas tree - your choice!

7. Retell favorite holiday stories with your child as one of the story characters – e.g., as one of the flying reindeer, helping at the North Pole, or at the first Christmas.

8. Wrap-up surprise. Set up an inexpensive wrapping station of recycled paper, paper bags or even pillowcases. Set a time every day, or once a week, when the whole family is home. Ring an alarm for everyone to find surprise "presents" to "wrap" for everyone else from the stuff already in your house.

9. Snuggle chair. Add a holiday scarf or throw blanket on a comfy chair. Incorporate five minutes of snuggle time after school, before dinner, or at that time of day when everyone begins to fall apart.

10. Holiday noses. Pine needles, cinnamon, peppermint, orange -- create scent associations for the season using essential oils or cooking extracts. Dab everyone's wrist or hand and call yourself the Peppermint Family for the day.

11. Christmas Past. Bring out the photos from Christmases past to talk about with your child. Celebrate how much your child has grown and all your favorite memories. Be ready for questions and prompts to help your child understand the connection between past and present, things that change and things that don't, and all the love that is part of your family.

12. Reindeer kisses. Seal your love every day with reindeer kisses of your choosing - the kind you give with long reindeer eyelashes or the wet slobbery kind.

The what of these mini activities doesn't matter; it's the how: How you remember to slow down, how you pause the busyness, how you laugh through the craziness, and how you create safe, peaceful, calm, happy memories.

Karen Deerwester is the owner of Family Time Coaching & Consulting, writing and lecturing on parenting and early childhood topics since 1984. Currently, Karen is the director of Family Time classes at The Ruth and Edward Taubman Early Childhood Center at B’nai Torah Congregation in Boca Raton. Karen is the author of The Potty Training Answer Book, The Playskool Guide to Potty Training, and most recently The Entitlement-Free Child.